Inside College Football

CUTTING LOOSEPenn State unveils a wide-open offense to go with its formidable D

After Penn State's crushing 41-7 defeat of Arizona in thePigskin Classic last Saturday, there's only one question left toask about the Nittany Lions: Can their much-heralded defensekeep up with their offense?

Led with equal aplomb by its quarterbacks, steady senior KevinThompson and exciting junior Rashard Casey, the offense gained504 yards against the Wildcats, who entered the game ranked No.4 in the nation. It looked as if the Nittany Lions had takenmegadoses of Florida's fun 'n' gun vitamins; Thompson and Caseyeven alternated plays in one second-quarter series, the wayGators quarterbacks did two seasons ago in a 21-6 victory overPenn State in the Citrus Bowl. "We weren't going to play veryclose to the vest," Nittany Lions offensive coordinator FranGanter said after the game. "We didn't think [Arizona] was ateam we could overpower. We tricked them a little bit."

In the Wildcats, Penn State had the perfect foil. Arizona hadprepared for the white-bread offense that Nittany Lions coachJoe Paterno used last season: two tight ends, two backs, andcalls more conservative than Gary Bauer. But Paterno had decidedto change his approach, in part because his '98 team scored atotal of only 12 points in losses to Wisconsin, Michigan andOhio State. "Last year I kind of tied the hands of our offensivecoaches because I wasn't comfortable with the experience we hadin a couple of spots," said Paterno after the game. "I thoughtwe could stay in games and win at the end. Maybe I made amistake."

Arizona's defensive game plan accounted for the loss of its bestdefensive back, senior strong safety Greg Payne, who sprainedhis left ankle two weeks before the game. The Wildcats movedinside linebacker Scooter Sprotte to strong safety, lined upjunior Antonio Pierce at linebacker and got ready to smash somemouths. They never did. On the Nittany Lions' third snap,fifth-year senior flanker Chafie Fields took a reverse aroundleft end for 20 yards. On the next play sophomore tailback EricMcCoo shifted out of the I, lined up as a third receiver on theright side and caught a swing pass for eight yards. Three playslater Fields caught a short pass over the middle and turned itinto a 37-yard touchdown. That wasn't the end of thepyrotechnics. On Penn State's next possession, Fields went intomotion, took a handoff from Casey and turned upfield for 70yards and another touchdown. (Ganter says he filed away the playafter watching Florida use it.) Before six minutes had elapsed,Penn State led 14-0.

The game vindicated Thompson, who had been much maligned for hisinconsistent play last season, but he refused to indulgehimself. "We're not trying to prove things to anybody," he saidafterward. "We weren't running the ball effectively enough[today] to win against Ohio State and Michigan State. We've gotto be more consistent." On Saturday for Penn State, bothquarterbacks, three running backs and Fields had at least onerush of 10 yards or more.

Paterno said that one game couldn't tell him much about his 34thNittany Lions team. But the only real complaint he made afterthe game concerned the bee that had stung his right hand in thefourth quarter. The sting he ran on Arizona was 10 times worse.

Seminoles' Kendra ReturnsHAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE GAME

Dan Kendra stood by himself in a corner of the Florida Statelocker room, grinning jubilantly. He had just played in hisfirst game since November 1997, and even though he hadcontributed little to the Seminoles' 41-7 home win overLouisiana Tech--two rushes for six yards, one reception for a10-yard loss, and a couple of blocks--Kendra, a backup fullback,had never felt better. Eighteen months earlier he had beenFlorida State's starting quarterback, a wildly intenseperfectionist who thought about almost nothing but football. Butthen he had torn the ACL in his right knee and gone into atailspin from which he only recently escaped.

"It used to be that everything in my life revolved aroundfootball and my body," says Kendra, a 6'2", 255-pound senior whocame out of Bethlehem (Pa.) Catholic as the nation's top-ratedhigh school quarterback in 1995. "When I didn't have footballlast year, I was lost. I'd mope and walk around angry. Everyhour of the day I'd think about football and how I couldn'tplay. I was obsessed; it almost destroyed me."

He had surgery on the knee in April '98 and again last April,but only three weeks before two-a-days began in August, the kneewas still sore and swollen. Kendra spent several sleeplessnights stewing over the possibility that he wouldn't be ready toplay. But on July 28, he says, he was born again while watchinga TV program called Signs from God, in which a woman spoke aboutthe power of salvation. After that, he says, his attitudechanged and his anger disappeared.

Although the knee began to feel better, Kendra missed half ofFlorida State's preseason practices and all of its scrimmagesbecause of unrelated nagging injuries, such as the shoulder andneck stingers he incurred because he tried to run over defenderson every play. On Saturday, Kendra entered the game to a rousingovation with 14:06 remaining in the second quarter, and afterthat he rotated with junior starter William McCray.

Given what he has been through, Kendra is content to be a roleplayer. "I'm not in the limelight like I once was, but I'm O.K.with that," he says. "I've spent a lot of time, energy and paingetting to this point, and I can honestly say I'm happy where Iam." --B.J. Schecter

Wolfpack Block PartyHEY, COACH, PUT ME IN

If not for his persistence, North Carolina State redshirtfreshman Terrence Holt might never have been on the field toblock two fourth-quarter punts that the Wolfpack returned fortouchdowns in a 23-20 upset of Texas. "One of our linebackers,Corey Lyons, was winded," Holt said after the game. "I told[special teams] Coach [Joe] Pate, 'Put me in.... I'm going toget one.' I practiced blocking kicks all last year on the scoutteam. I dreamed about doing it in a game, and now, to get two,it's so unreal."

COLOR PHOTO: BOB ROSATO Stunned Arizona took its hat off to Lions such as Larry Johnson, here scoring on a 60-yard catch.

Fast Forward

--Notre Dame (1-0) at Michigan (0-0)

Wolverines coach Lloyd Carr has mounted a soapbox to railagainst one of the evils of college football. Agents?Scholarship limits? Lee Corso? Nope. Carr is fuming becauseNotre Dame played a game last week and Michigan didn't. He hassuggested that the Big Ten propose a rule change that wouldrequire every Division I-A team to begin its season on the sameweekend.

Carr is surely aware that since 1987 the Wolverines' record inopeners is 0-5-1 against the Irish and 6-0 against other teams.His stance has drawn support from an unlikely Michigan ally."I've spoken to Lloyd about it," Ohio State coach John Coopersaid Sunday after a 23-12 loss to Miami. "I don't understand whyeverybody doesn't start on a certain date. Hey, Penn Stateopened on Saturday. [If we hadn't played this game] they wouldhave had an extra two weeks of practice on us." Cooper isreferring to the fact that a team that plays a late August gameis allowed to start practicing earlier in the summer.

Carr, like most coaches, has a selective memory. He made hiscoaching debut in the 1995 Pigskin Classic, in which Michigandefeated Virginia 18-17. As far as anyone knows, his concern forfairness didn't extend to Illinois, which opened its season aweek later by losing to the Wolverines 38-14.

But let's give Carr the benefit of the doubt and say that he'sright to worry. The Irish will spoil another Wolverines opener.